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BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE 



BY 
William Lyon Phelps, Ph« I>. 
L^rapson Professor of English Literature 
at Yale University* 



NEW YORK 
THOMAS Y, CROWELL' COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS, 



* 



<<N*5 6 



COPYRIGHT 1910 
BY William Lyon Phelps, 



©CU300580 






BROWNING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE* 

By William Lyon Phelps, Ph.D. 
Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale University 

With one exception, the economic law of supply 
and demand governs the production of literature 
exactly as it determines the price of wheat. For 
the last fifty years, the Novel has been the chief 
channel of literary expression, the dominant lit- 
erary form; in the days of Elizabeth, the Drama 
was supreme. During the early part of the eight- 
eenth century, theological poetry enjoyed a great 
vogue. Pope's "Essay on Man" sold off like a 
modern detective story. The history of the Eng- 
lish Sonnet is interesting. This form of verse was 
exceedingly popular in 1600: by 1660 it had prac- 
tically disappeared, and remained obsolete for 
nearly a hundred years: in the middle of the 
eighteenth century it was "revived," during the 
nineteenth century became exceedingly fashion- 
able, and is still right in style, as one may see by 
opening almost any current magazine. Why is it 
that writers chose to put their ideas on God, nature 
and man, in the form of a drama in 1600, and in the 
form of a novel in 1900? Why is it that inspired 
men should make poems of fourteen lines in 1580 
and in 1880, and not do it in 1680? If we do not 
attempt an ultimate analysis, the answer is clear. 
The bookseller supplies the public, the publisher 
supplies the bookseller, and the author supplies 

* Copyright, 1910, by William Lyon Phelps. 



viii BROWNING'S PLACE 

the publisher. A bookseller will have on his 
shelves what the people want, and the publisher 
will furnish material in response to the same de- 
sire, just as a farmer plants in his fields some food- 
stuff for which there is a sharp demand. Authors 
are compelled to write for the market, whether they 
like it or not, otherwise they cannot get their work 
into print. The reason why the modern novel, 
with all its faults, is so full of ideas on every con- 
ceivable topic in religious, educational, political, 
economic, and sociological thought, is because the 
vast majority of writers are at this moment forced 
to put their reflections into the form of novels, 
just as Marlowe and Chapman had to write plays. 
With one exception, the law of supply and demand 
determines the metrical shape of the poet's frenzy, 
and the prose mould of the philosopher's ideas. 

The exception is so rare that it establishes the 
rule. The exception is Genius — the scarcest arti- 
cle on earth. And even Genius often follows the 
market — it takes the prevailing literary fashion, 
and adapts itself to the form in vogue in an incom- 
parably excellent way. Such Genius — the Genius 
for Adaptation — never has to wait long for recog- 
nition, simply because it supplies a tremendous 
popular demand. Such a Genius was Shakespeare; 
such a Genius was Pope; such a Genius was Scott; 
such a Genius was Byron; such a Genius was 
Tennyson. But the real exception to the great 
economic law is found in the Man of Original 
Genius, who cares nothing for the tiling in vogue 
except perhaps to destroy it. This man is entirely 
outside the law of supply and demand, because he 
supplies nothing to meet any demand, and there 
is absolutely no demand for him. Indeed, he has 



IN LITERATURE ix 

to create the demand as well as the supply. Such 
a man in Music was Wagner; such a man in the 
Drama was Ibsen; and such a man in Poetry was 
Browning. These men had to wait long for rec- 
ognition, because nobody was looking for them, 
nobody wanted them. There was no demand for 
Wagner's music — but there is now, and he made 
it. There was no demand for plays like those of 
Ibsen; and there was not the least demand for 
poetry like "Pauline" or the "Dramatic Lyrics." 
The reason why the public does not immediately 
recognize the greatness of a work of original 
genius, is because the public at first apprehends 
only its strangeness. It is so unlike the thing the 
public is seeking, that it seems merely grotesque 
or absurd — many indeed declare that it is exactly 
the opposite of what it professes to be. Thus, 
many insisted that Ibsen's dramas were not plays 
at all; they were merely conversations on social 
topics. In like manner, the critics said that Wag- 
ner, whatever he composed, did not compose 
music; for instead of making melodies, he made 
harsh and discordant sounds. And, for nearly 
eighty years, many men of learning and culture 
have been loudly proclaiming that Browning, 
whatever he was, was not a poet; he was clever, 
he was thoughtful, a philosopher, if you like, but 
surely no poet. When "The Ring and the Book" 
was published, a thoroughly respectable English 
critic wrote, "Music does not exist for him any 
more than for the deaf." 

Nothing is more singular to contemplate than 
the variations in form of what the public calls 
Melody, both in notation and in language. What 
delights the ears of one generation distresses or 



x BROWNING'S PLACE 

wearies the ears of another. Elizabethan audi- 
ences listened with rapture to long harangues in 
bombastic blank verse; a modern audience cannot 
endure them. The senses of Queen Anne Eng- 
lishmen were charmed by what they called the 
melody of Pope's verse — by its even regularity 
and steady flow. Pope had the audacity to "ver- 
sify" the Satires of Donne. To us Pope's verse 
is full of wit and cerebration, but we find the 
measure intolerably monotonous. Indeed, by a 
curious irony of fate, Pope, who regarded himself 
supremely as a Poet, has since frequently been 
declared no poet at all. Keats wrote " Endymion " 
in the Heroic Couplet — the very measure em- 
ployed by Pope. But his use of it was so different 
that this poem would have seemed utterly lacking 
in melody to Augustan ears — Pope would not 
have hesitated to "versify" it. And yet we like 
it. It seems ridiculous to say that the man who 
wrote "Der fliegende Hollander" and "Tann- 
hauser" could not write melody, and yet it was 
almost universally said. It is strange that critics 
should say that the man who wrote "Evelyn 
Hope" and "Love Among the Ruins" could not 
write rhythmical verse, and yet such was once 
almost the universal opinion. Still, the rebellious 
instinct of the public that condemned Wagner in 
music and Browning in poetry was founded on 
something genuine; for Wagner was unlike other 
musicians, and Browning was unlike other poets. 
They did not give the public what the public 
really thought it wanted. They were Leaders, 
not Followers. 

Eraser's Magazine, for December, 1833, con- 
tained a review of " Pauline," from which the follow- 



IN LITERATURE xi 

ing paragraph is worth quoting: — " 'Non dubito 
quin tituluSy etc., quotes the author of 'Pauline,' 
our next poem, from Cornelius Agrippa; which we, 
shearing the sentence of its lengthy continuation, 
translate thus : — ' We are under no kind of doubt 
about the title to be given to you, my poet;' you 
being, beyond all question, as mad as Cassandra, 
without any of the power to prophesy like her, or 
to construct a connected sentence like anybody 
else. We have already had a Monomaniac; and 
we designate you 'The Mad Poet of the Batch;' 
as being mad not in one direction only, but in all. 
A little lunacy, like a little knowledge, would be a 
dangerous thing." 

There were, of course, some men of discernment, 
like Fox, Mill, and others, who recognized in- 
stantly the extraordinary, if undeveloped power 
displayed in this poem; but Fraser's review ade- 
quately voiced the sentiment of the majority of 
those who read it for the first time. 

It is utterly impossible to understand Browning's 
poetry or to discover his place in literature without 
firmly fixing in the mind what his theory of poetry 
actually was, and at the same time fully compre- 
hending his ideal and his aim. Fortunately he 
gave us in "Pauline," a definite statement on this 
subject. He clearly set forth his theory of the 
function of the poet, and although he was only 
twenty years old when he wrote it, he never wa- 
vered or departed from this standard. 

And then thou said'st a perfect bard was one 
Who chronicled the stages of all life. 

These two lines furnish the key to Browning's 
entire poetic career. 



xii BROWNING'S PLACE 

What is most remarkable about this definition 
of poetry is what it leaves out. The average man 
regards poetry as being primarily concerned with 
the creation of Beauty. Not a word is said about 
Beauty in Browning's theory. The average man 
regards poetry as being necessarily melodious, 
rhythmical, tuneful, above all, pleasing to the 
senses; indeed, the sensations of many readers of 
poetry are chiefly physical — they wish to be 
soothed by agreeable recurrence of rhyme, even as a 
cat enjoys the soothing strokes along its back. But 
Browning makes no allusion to rhyme or rhythm; 
not even to melody or music of any kind. To him 
the bard is the Reporter of Life, the man who 
observes human nature in its various forms, and 
gives a faithful account of it. And, exactly 
in proportion to his power to accomplish this, is 
the poet great; if he correctly describes a wide 
stretch of life, he is greater than if he has succeeded 
in a narrow range; and the Perfect Bard is the one 
who chronicles the stages of all life. Shakespeare 
is the supreme poet because he has approached 
nearer to this ideal than any one else — he has 
chronicled nearly every phase of humanity, and 
has accurately portrayed an infinite variety of 
character. The poet's verses at times will be 
beautiful, because then he is chronicling some 
phase of beauty. Browning had no difficulty in 
writing melodiously when he placed the posy in 
his Ring, although just a moment before he was 
anything but musical. His picture of the triple 
light at sunset in the "Last Ride" is almost intol- 
erably beautiful, because such a scene fairly over- 
whelms the senses. Pompilia's dying speech of 
adoring passion for Caponsacchi is sublime music, 



IN LITERATURE xiii 

because the thought demands it. On the other 
hand, the two books devoted to the lawyers are 
jolting doggerel, because each lawyer was a pe- 
dantic and self-satisfied ass. The criticisms di- 
rected against Browning's lack of artistic beauty 
immediately fade if we only understand his theory 
of poetry. How could the man who wrote such 
flowing and noble music as we fiild in "Saul" also 
have written such impossible harsh stuff as "Mr. 
Sludge, the Medium"? The answer is that in the 
former poem he was chronicling a stage of life that 
in its very essence was Beauty ; in the latter, some- 
thing exactly the opposite. And in each case, the| 
style fits the thought and the character. Brown- 
ing regards the poet as primarily the Interpreter 
of Life; and life has its trivialities and its uglinesses, 
as well as its sublime aspirations. It is always in- 
teresting to observe in Browning's poetry, that 
whenever the thought rises, the style automatically 
rises with it. 

This theory of poetry Browning not only en- 
deavored to exemplify in his work — he often 
distinctly repeated it. In "The Glove," while all 
the court, hide-bound by conventional ideas, 
unite in deriding the lady, Peter Ronsard is deeply 
interested in discovering the motives that under- 
lay the lady's action. He runs after her. 

I followed after, 
And asked, as a grace, what it all meant? 
If she wished not the rash deed's recallment? 
* For I' — so I spoke — ' am a poet: 
Human nature, — behoves that I know it!' 

In "Transcendentalism," we are informed that the 
real poet deals with the concrete, not with the 



xiv BROWNING'S PLACE 

abstract. Transcendentalism is not a fit subject 
for poetry, because it deals with a philosophical 
idea, whereas it ought to discuss men and women. 
Botany is compared with roses, to the great dis- 
advantage of the former. A few pedants may like 
botany, but humanity prefers flowers. In "How 
it Strikes a Contemporary, " which Browning 
finally placed immediately after "Transcenden- 
talism," as though to illustrate further his meaning, 
the true poet is quite naturally mistaken for a 
Spy. He is indeed a spy, if he be a real poet; he 
is a spy on human life. 

He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, 
Scenting the world, looking it full in face . . . 
He took such cognizance of men and things, 
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw; 
If any cursed a woman, he took note. 

The true poet scents the world, smells it out. 
A still stronger expression is used in "Christmas 
Eve." Here the poet actually pries at life. 

As I declare our Poet, him 
Whose insight makes all others dim: 
A thousand poets pried at life, 
And only one amid the strife 
Rose to be Shakespeare. 

From first to -last Browning understood the 
prevailing criticism of his poetry, directed against 
his lack of musical rhythm. He commented on it 
more than once in his work. But he answered it 
always in the same way, in "Pippa Passes," in the 
last stanzas of "Pacchiarotto," and in the "Epi- 
logue" to the same volume. He insisted that what 



IN LITERATURE xv 

the critics really meant by Melody was the child- 
ish jingle of rhymes like Mother Goose. Referring 
to "Sordello," he makes the Second Student in 
"Pippa" remark, "Instead of cramp couplets, each 
like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says 
Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly. . . . 
One strip Cools your lip. . . . One bottle Clears your 
throttle." In "Pacchiarotto," he calls to his critics 

And, what with your rattling and tinkling, 

Who knows but you give me an inkling 

How music sounds, thanks to the jangle 

Of regular drum and triangle? 

Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, 't is proven 

I break rule as bad as Beethoven. 

"That chord now — a groan or a grunt is 't? 

Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist. 

No ear ! or if ear, so tough-gristled — 

He thought that he sung while he whistled!" 

In the "Epilogue," Browning says that flowers 
growing here and there in a pasture are much bet- 
ter than cut and gathered into a nosegay, and that 
the fields of his verse really have the cowslips. 
Changing the figure, and replying to those who say 
that his wine has strength but not sweetness, body 
but not bouquet, he declares that new wine is 
always heady, but that it will grow sweet with age. 
To the present generation his verse seems unpal- 
atable; future generations will enjoy it. 

Browning felt too that there was at times a 
certain virtue in mere roughness; that there were 
certain thoughts, which, if expressed in harsh 
phrase, would make a deeper impression, and be 
longer remembered. The opening stanza of "The 
Twins" emphasizes this idea: — 



xvi BROWNING'S PLACE 

Grand rough old Martin Luther 
Bloomed fables — flowers on furze, 
The better the uncouther: 
Do roses stick like burrs? 

Such a theory must be recalled to explain such a 
line as 

Irks care the cropfull bird ? Frets doubt the maw-crammed 
beast ? 

Of course Browning's theory of poetry does not 
justify all the unmusical passages in his works. 
He felt, as every poet must, the difficulty of artic- 
ulation — the disparity between his ideas and the 
verbal form he gave them. He had his faults and 
limitations of expression, and realized them keenly. 
The Pope insists with intense energy that in the 
next world there will be some means of communi- 
cation far better than language. His feeling on 
the matter is so strong that he undoubtedly repre- 
sents some of the trials in composition that af- 
flicted the poet: — 

Expect nor question nor reply 
At what we figure as God's judgment bar! 
None of this vile way by the barren words 
Which, more than any deed, characterize 
Man as made subject to a curse: no speech. 

Finally, at the very end of "The Ring and the 
Book," Browning declared that human testimony 
was false, a statement that will be supported by 
any lawyer or judge of much court experience. 
Human testimony being worthless, there remains 
only one way for the Poet to tell the truth, and that 



\ 



IN LITERATURE xvii 

is through his Art. The poet should use his art 
not primarily with the idea of creating something 
beautiful, but with the purpose of expressing the 
actual truth about human life. The highest art 
is the highest veracity — and this was Browning's 
theory of poetry — this was his ideal, and by 
adhering to this he hoped to save his soul. Like 
the truly great artists, he felt deeply the responsi- 
bility of his splendid endowment. In one of his 
early letters, he said, "I must write poetry and 
save my soul." And in the last few lines of his 
"Ring and the Book" he repeated this thought. 

So, British Public, who may like me yet, 

(Marry and amen!) learn one lesson hence 

Of many which whatever lives should teach: 

This lesson, that our human speech is naught, 

Our human testimony false, our fame 

And human estimation words and wind. 

Why take the artistic way to prove so much? 

Because, it is the glory and good of Art, 

That Art remains the one way possible 

Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least . . . 

But Art, — wherein man nowise speaks to men, 

Only to mankind, — Art may tell a truth 

Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, 

Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. 

So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, 

Beyond mere imagery on the wall, — 

So, note by note, bring music from your mind, 

Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived, — 

So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, 

Suffice the eye and save the soul beside. 

Browning's place in English literature is not with 
the great verse-sculptors, not with the Masters of 
the imperishable beauty of Form; he does not 



xviii BROWNING'S PLACE 

belong to the glorious company where reign su- 
preme Milton, Keats, and Tennyson; his place is 
rather with the Interpreters of Life, with the poets 
who use their art to express the shine and shadow 
of Life's tragi-comedy — to whom the base, the 
trivial, the frivolous, the grotesque, the absurd 
seem worth reporting, along with the pure, the 
noble, and the sublime, since all these elements 
are equally human. In this wide field of art, with 
the exception of Shakespeare, who is the exception 
to everything, the first-born and the last-born of 
all the great English poets know no equal in the 
five centuries that rolled between them. The 
first person to say this publicly was himself a 
poet, and a student of Form — Walter Savage 
Landor. When he said it, people thought it was 
mere hyperbole, the stressed language of compli- 
ment; but we know now that Landor's words are 
as true as they are beautiful. 

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, 
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee, 
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 
No man hath walk'd along our roads with step 
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 
So varied in discourse. 

Browning waited with patient cheerfulness over 
thirty years for fame, but it came at last. He never 
lacked a few discriminating admirers, but he had 
no public until 1864. His wonderful "Bells and 
Pomegranates," which contain some of his best 
work, attracted no wide attention ; and at the time 
of his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett in 1846, his 
reputation was nothing in comparison with hers. 
It was spoken of as the runaway match between a 









IN LITERATURE xix 

young literary man and a woman of genius. Not 
even the publication of the fifty "Men and 
Women," universally known as these poems are 
to-day, made any impression on England. So late 
as 1860, when the publisher's copyright state- 
ment for the preceding six months arrived, it 
appeared that during those six months not one 
single copy of "Men and Women" had been sold! 
Mrs. Browning died with not the slightest public 
ratification of her faith in her husband's powers. 
But in 1864, with the "Dramatis Personam," a group 
of undergraduates at Oxford became wildly enthu- 
siastic over the poet who had been steadily pub- 
lishing works of genius since 1833; their enthusiasm 
communicated itself to the British public; and a 
second edition of this volume was printed during 
the year. Then Browning's reputation grew with 
a rapidity that more than atoned for the years of 
silence. Five years later, on the completion of the 
publication of the "Ring and the Book," a critic 
confidently asserted, that the poem was not only 
" the supremest poetical achievement of our time," 
but the "most precious and profound spiritual 
treasure that England has received since the days 
of Shakespeare." Since then Browning's poems 
have become a portion of English speech. The 
language of his men and women constantly ap- 
pears in English books, with the absence of quo- 
tation marks, the highest compliment one author 
can pay to another. 

Not only are his works now familiar to all English- 
speaking people, but there is every sign of his be- 
coming a world-poet. He has enormously influ- 
enced modern thought everywhere; his poems are 
being translated into foreign languages, and one of 



xx BROWNING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 

the greatest living men of letters, Maurice Maeter- 
linck, did not hesitate to borrow a scene in "Monna 
Vanna" directly from "Luria." The present 
writer was the first to notice this, and in response 
to his observation, he received a personal letter 
from M. Maeterlinck, which is interesting as the 
evidence of Browning's continental fame. "I 
am," wrote the Belgian dramatist, "an ardent 
admirer of Browning. He is to me one of the 
greatest poets that England has ever had. He is 
one of the great poets of the world, whom every one 
is supposed to know. Borrowing from him is a 
kind of public homage, just as one borrows daily 
from Homer, iEschylus, or Shakespeare." There 
are not wanting English critics who are still loudly 
predicting the approaching death of Browning's 
name; but they are as powerless before the rising 
tide of his reputation as the old king was before 
the incoming sea. His poetry was built to last, 
and it cannot be destroyed, either by the nibbling 
tooth of criticism or the sharper tooth of time. The 
exact place he will hold in the distant future it is 
now impossible to predict; but his works cannot 
die, because as Elizabeth Barrett wrote many 
years ago, they have in them the " principle of 
life." 



NOV 15 .i19H 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
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